The One Who Believed

By Lakshana Mukundan (12G) & Yash Garg (11G)

The last thing I remembered was passing out on the floor, right beside my

bed. My sister was right beside me, passed out cold, on her stomach. I flipped her

over, she felt cold. So did I. She looked like she was in stasis, or something like that.

She wasn’t dead, surely. She was breathing well, but unresponsive. There was a

mark on her face, a blue spiral, which seemed to be never-ending. Coming from her

torso, I could see colourful bands of light, which occasionally transformed into orbs. I

felt confused, I hadn’t seen such things before. One of my friends, who believed in

psychics and dark magic, had mentioned that there were some people who suddenly

emanated ‘visible light’. That was what it looked like, but I wasn’t one for myths.

Academics described it as a newly-formed natural element. Some said it was alien

life. Just before I passed out, I’d seen a shadow glide past.

As I eased myself up, I checked the time, it was 2:57 am. I strained my mind

to recall the events that had taken place. Nothing. I then rushed to tend to the

mystical light coming out of my sister’s torso, I was baffled, I’d never seen anything

like that in my entire life. It was then I realised, the light was not emanating from her

body, but rather being synthesised out of thin air and going into her body. Her face

was calm and her body growing warmer. I didn’t know how to react. I knew that if I’d

move her, it would cause more harm than good. Just then the finals bands of light

entered her body. Silence. The mark on her forehead started to glow. She then

began levitating, slowly lifting off the ground as if being picked up by a force from the

part of her torso where the energy flowed in. Her body straining with every inch she

rose, a bright blue now filled the entire dark room. Just as the clock in my room

struck 3, she fell. The mark now off her face, and now on the back of her neck. I

immediately rushed to her and heard her whisper, ‘Kal’o orniest Ferapa’.

Surprisingly, I knew what that meant.

‘I’ve risen to the living.’ It seemed like that light that entered her was a life, but

the soul was expressed only when it entered a particular body, and until then, the

light just floated around. It reminded me a bit of a parasite, which needs a host to live

fully. I started to wonder whether my friend who believed in myths was right after all.

The language honestly sounded like the mythical language, Luri, as far as I’d read in

books. My dad read many stories to us when we were children: my older sister,

Helena; my older brother, Scerlan; and me. Most of them were fairy tales of Luritem.

My sister believed in them, while my brother and I didn’t. The incident made me

question my life beliefs. Helena was the one who believed, and now, I saw her limp,

all the light gone. Immediately, I called Scerlan, told him what happened. I asked him

to come as soon as possible, I needed his insight.

‘Serlina, I’m here. Tell me what happened.’ he said, panting, when he arrived

an hour later.

I was seated on the floor with Helena’s head on my lap. Gently stroking her

head. I explained everything that had occurred, every detail to Scerlan. He listened

intently, his face tensing with every word that came out of my mouth. He then pulled

up a chair and seated himself. ‘Kal’o orniest Ferapa’, he repeated. An expression of

realisation took over his face. He instantly took his iPad out of his sling bag and

began scrolling wildly through images of ancient wall paintings, sculptures, ruins of

majestic ancient empires and hieroglyphics. He stopped scrolling. His eyes moving

rapidly across the screen, he got still.

‘Scerlan. What is it?’ I asked intently.

He turned his iPad around and showed me. They were a series of damaged,

fragmented images. One, with a spiral over it, in which the words written appeared to

be in blood, ‘Kal’o orniest Ferapa’.

‘What am I looking at?’ I enquired.

He explained, ‘These are images of hieroglyphs found inside the inner

chambers of a temple in the centre of an ancient city that was just found last week.

The archaeologists believe they’ve finally found Luritem.’ The city was discovered in

the midst of the Siberian Desert.

‘Should we go to the temple?’ I asked. Not a very good question, it would be

closed to outsiders, and Scerlan and I couldn’t go all the way to Siberia, carrying a

limp Helena, without looking suspicious.

‘Yes, but let’s not bother Mum and Dad with this, they just split up recently

and wouldn’t appreciate us trying to get them involved.’ he said.

I felt really uncomfortable whenever anybody mentioned that. Then, I could

see that he was also rethinking his answer about going to the temple, but we both

looked down at Helena and the mark at the back of her neck. We nodded at each

other and packed our bags. I didn’t forget to pack the folktales that Dad had left at

the house in which Helena and I lived. Carrying Helena, we went out the door. I

couldn’t help thinking, my brother and I had very unique names, we’d been made fun

of because of them. We didn’t know anybody with the same names, we could make

our usernames as just our first names on any social media platform because they

weren’t taken yet. We’d seen Helena face username issues many times. Our father

was very interested in Luri stories, so maybe he’d researched more about Luritem

and named us Scerlan and Serlina. Our names sounded ethereal.

‘You look like you’re dreaming. You’re standing like a statue; I think we should

leave now.’ badgered Scerlan.

We embarked on Scerlan’s ‘Flyknot Z-72’ and took off for Siberia. He sat in

the cockpit navigating us over the clouds straight towards Siberia. “ETA to Siberia, 1

hour 36 minutes.” he announced formally. Helena lay in the protective bunk that

would prevent her from feeling any movement whatsoever. As the vehicle stabilised,

I unbuckled myself and went over to Dad’s old story books. ‘Tales of Luritem’,

‘Ancient Luritem - 3098’, ‘Rise of Goddess Luri.’ As I took that book out, memories of

my dad narrating it to me came rushing back, the memories were blurred, but I could

recall pieces of them. This story was about how the people of Luritem, instead of idol

worshipping, believed that their goddess arrived once a millennia in the form of a

spirit that would take over the body of a pure Luritemian. All those stories didn't seem

that ‘made-up’ anymore.

“Scerlan.” I called, “Hold up, isn't Serbia where Dad’s archaeology team is

right now?”

He replied hesitantly, “Yes Serlina, you’re right.”

I hadn’t seen Dad ever since he and Mum split. Actually, I hadn’t seen either

of them. All I knew was that he was very interested in Luri mythology and he was

probably examining the temple along with his team. I pored over the pages, looking

to find more information from the stories. I found one that caught my eye. It was

about an ‘otherworldly woman’ who got lost in their land. The citizens were all

extremely scared of her at first - and she of them - as they hadn’t encountered

anything like this. Even the woman had no idea how she got there. It took some time

for both her and the citizens to get used to the situation. The woman was then given

a Luri name, Serlina, which meant ‘glistening, bright and ethereal’. Of course, that

really interested me. My name did indeed come from one of these stories. After co-

existing with the Luritemians for a while, Serlina was found with the same marks that

Helena now had. ‘Kal’o orniest Ferapa,’ she had chanted. She was there, at Luritem,

because she was a pure Luritemian and the goddess had entered inside her.

Immediately, I told Scerlan, ‘If what’s in these stories is true, then Helena’s supposed

to be a ‘pure Luritemian.’

Scerlan was surprised. ‘Does that mean we could have Luri ancestors?’ he

asked. I shrugged; I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Just then, Scerlan decided

to land our chopper, we were to land ten miles away from the site where the ancient

Luri temple was found. From the window, I could see the temple and there was a

group of people near it, possibly Dad’s archaeology team. We descended from the

sky to a barren area, which was quite easy to find in Siberia.

Helena had woken up 30-40 minutes before we reached the temple site. In

that time, I had managed to briefly explain to her why we were flying to Siberia, so it

didn’t come as a shock to her already weakened senses. She was weak and just

seemed different. Once we landed Scerlan, we quickly detached the quad and

began the 10-mile hike to the location of the unearthed temple. This hike just

seemed effortless, thanks to the quad. We decided to park the quad about a quarter

of a mile away from the site and began to walk the rest of the way. There was

nothing but the light of the full moon and Scerlan’s half-bright torch lighting the way

into the dense rainforest of the southern Siberian rainforest.

But more than the darkness, the thought of being eaten alive by a Siberian

wild cat frightened me even more. But Scerlan was ‘prepared’ and handed me one of

the tasers he had taken from the house’s emergency kit. I had no knowledge, nor

any intention, of using one of these things. Nonetheless, I carried it along. Within a

matter of fifteen minutes, we were at the site.

The site was more like 5 acres of forest was shaved off the jungle to build this

Shrine. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. The architecture was just unique, like

a huge enclosed dome with fascinatingly unique, twisted and asymmetrical

projections coming out of the dome at random angles and places. Slightly

comparable to the back of a porcupine. It was made of a glistening dark blue rock

with streaks of white here and there that reflected the moonlight similarly to how

water reflects off of ripples in water. Luckily, we’d arrived at what seemed the back

entrance and thus, didn't have too many people on the lookout at this time of the

night. There were floodlights placed that were a much greater help than the

moonlight. We quickly ducked behind a couple of bushes from where we overheard

a couple of our Dad’s team members talking about how again they were unable to

open the entrance and would try with heavier tools the next day. There were three

gates at the side of the temple we were at. Three identical, locked gates. However,

over two of the gates was a design similar to that of the paw of a tiger and one of

them had the same spiralling sign exactly like the one on Helena’s neck.

Whilst Helena was ecstatic that Luritem and all the stories about it were

probably real, Scerlan and I were trying to think about how we could investigate the

site without surprising Dad. Well, we couldn’t just break into the temple, could we?

That’d be illegal. Meanwhile, we decided to study all the scriptures on the bright blue

dome. I wondered, how could it not be seen for centuries, until now? It was bright

blue, and it looked like a porcupine. Surely, that was something visible from

anywhere. Scerlan was referring to the books we brought along with us and he read,

‘Ist Piona Su Ulama’, along with some symbols, which we understood to mean it was

constructed three thousand years ago, by somebody named Ulama.

Just a few minutes after Scerlan read that quote, Helena walked towards a

wall with barely any scriptures on it, right next to where ‘Kal’o orniest Ferapa’ was

written, and said, ‘Uti Ju Luritem Basai.’ We were baffled, we had no idea what she

was saying.

‘English, please?’ asked Scerlan.

‘Only pure Luritemians can read this! Oh goodness, I’m actually a pure

Luritemian!! I’ve believed in the stories since we were young and it has paid off!’ she

exclaimed, squealing.

Scerlan and I had already reconciled ourselves to the fact that she wasn’t

completely earthly, but only then, I realised that Helena still hadn’t realised it. Her

face had a newfound joy, I’d never seen this much joy on my older sister’s face, even

though she was generally a happy person.

‘What is going on?’ asked Scerlan. ‘Am I imagining things, or is the temple’s

gate opening?’

‘I can see it too.’ I said. The spiral mark on the gate looked like it was

changing shape, all right. Some ‘beings’ were emerging from out of it.

‘You.’ they said, pointing at Helena. ‘Come with us.’

‘Only if my brother and sister can come with me.’

‘No, you are to come alone.’

‘We’ve seen you. If you don’t let us come, then I don’t see a point. We know

about your culture, at least a little. I assure you, we mean no harm, please let us

come.’ pleaded Scerlan, with a newfound interest in Luritem.

‘We know that every thousand years, a pure Luritemian is found. Though

we’re not that fluent, we’re speaking to you in the Luri language. It would be wise if

you let us in as well.’ I demanded. It was true. We took a lot of Luri words from the

books we were reading and tried to use them while we talked. Of course, it was

mixed with a lot of English, but they understood what we had said, and we hoped to

improve. Helena, being a pure Luritemian, understood everything they said. After a

discussion between them, along with Helena, they permitted us to enter with her.

Scerlan and I were holding Helena really tightly, hoping that we wouldn’t get

disintegrated on our way. We were actually going inside the temple. I closed my

eyes tight, and together, the three of us went inside the walls.

~ THE END ~